written by Matt Woolfolk, ASA director of performance programs

When you’re setting your destination into your Google Maps on a road trip, often you will be given multiple routes to get to the destination. Options include shortest travel time, least miles, or avoiding the toll roads and back roads. Even if you choose to ignore the guidance, it can be a helpful tool when heading to a new place. Much like directions to your destination, there are often several ways to land at the same endpoint when we are calculating selection indexes. To dive deeper into this subject matter, we’re going to make a U turn and go back to the basics of selection indexes to get a better grasp of the harder stuff later in the journey.

Selection indexes are essentially a complex algebraic equation with weights of importance placed on every EPD included in the index. These indexes are based on economic factors in certain production scenarios; the weightings of an EPD trait are not arbitrary. An index is usually expressed in a unit of dollars. Comparing two bulls for an index, the higher figure is projected to produce more revenue for the operation when he is used in a breeding scenario like the one the index is designed for. Situations that indexes are constructed for usually center around a commercial cow herd with a specific end point or marketing goal (replacement females, feeder steers, retained ownership, etc.). In a seedstock situation, these indexes find value in helping the genetic provider (YOU) produce cattle better suited for the commercial customers in those production scenarios.

American Shorthorn Association produces a trio of indexes for members to use in their breeding programs. The $Calving Ease index ($CEZ) is designed to identify genetics that excel in eliminating calving difficulty in heifers. Our $Feedlot index ($F) is constructed to help commercial producers find the bulls that will best work for their herds in a strictly terminal operation, focusing on growth and carcass quality. Finally, $British Maternal ($BMI) aims to identify the Shorthorns that are best suited for commercial breeders in a situation where they are retaining their own replacement females.

Much like developing a ration to feed your calves, there are multiple ways to get to the same outcome when using selection index technology in your program. While the ingredients may all be the same, the proportions and amounts can vary, all while still getting your cattle to the desired endpoint. I want to take the time to dive further into this concept, so below are some examples of how not all $BMI and $F are created equally. We’ll study how these bulls’ genetic profiles don’t necessarily look the same but can produce the same outcome from a revenue-generating perspective or index value.

There are several ways to arrive at almost equal $BMI when you study these three sires. Bull A excels in calving ease, solid carcass, and high milk, while also being low enough growth to not be penalized for (likely) larger mature sized cows. Bull B’s value in a $BMI scenario is largely in siring calves that will bring the most value at weaning through his high growth genetics. And Bull C is a combination bull that has good growth data, high milk, and solid calving ease. Obviously, these bulls take three very different paths to the same destination. With a more complex index like $BMI, there’s going to be multiple paths to the same answer. Remember, while $BMI does focus on aiding the rancher that is keeping his own females, it does not abandon the steer mates to his heifers. That is why you see growth and carcass traits involved in $BMI. A bull’s peak value may be in making top-class daughters with minimal regard to her brothers, or he may sire good females while siring killer feeder calves. Both possibilities are viable options to generate similar financial returns to the operation.

This index is designed to focus on terminal marketing, so it’s logical that growth is a driver of $Feedlot. With Bull 1, you get good growth with above average carcass values, creating value all the way through. Bull 2 is unique that his high CED is a bonus to him (CED factors in because we must have live calves to get them to grow in the feed yard). Growth is good on that bull, and carcass is acceptable. The growth data on Bull 3 are his selling point, adding pounds (and dollars) to a carcass that may not necessarily excel for quality on the grid. For cattle to rank highly in the $Feedlot metric, higher growth EPDs are important. Being elite for growth and carcass isn’t necessary, but if your bull is weaker in one area, he better be stronger in the other to be a top end $F bull.

Our final chart (on the next page) brings all six bulls used in this article together to compare their $BMI and $F values. You’ll notice that the high $BMI bulls don’t all translate to high $F cattle, while the high $F cattle look like stronger $BMI cattle as well. That’s likely due to the growth component factored into $BMI for the steer mates.

One important takeaway from this exercise is the making selections based solely on a selection index can be just as detrimental as making selections based on a single EPD. You may love Bull A’s $BMI, but if your customers have any market for selling or retaining feeder steers, he’s not a good option for fitting that niche. It’s still necessary to study the component traits of an index to make sure the bull you’re looking at is fine-tuned to meet your breeding goals.

We would like to say thank you again to the amazing ASA staff for welcoming us, thank you to Shorthorn for teaching us all so many things and making our time here something we won’t ever forget. #shorthornlife #loveyall

Now that we are past Junior Nationals and everything has been safely and neatly been organized back into the office, we’re ready to hit the pool for our ‘Shorthorn Summer’ (after work of course!)

Sara, Lily, Regan oh my! Week two and the interns are still here! Get to know them a little better below!

We are all so excited to be spending our summer with the American Shorthorn Association!

written by Matt Woolfolk, ASA director of performance programs

With most of the Shorthorn bull sales completed by the time you read this (hopefully you got the bull you wanted), it’s time to shift focus to breeding season. There’s plenty of decision making to be made in your breeding program, from breeding pasture size and availability, cow to bull ratio (don’t overload the young guys), and whether to use AI or natural breeding. This month, we will focus on the breeding and mating decision aspect of the season and how you can use Digital Beef to plan matings and identify genetics to add to your herd. As always, it is important to have goals for your breeding program headed into planning your matings for the coming year. Take the time to study your own herd (genetically and phenotypically) and determine where improvements can be made in the next generation. It’s hard to get where you want to go if you don’t know where that is!

There are many ways to utilize the online breed registry to help you during breeding season planning, both from the female and male sides of the equation. Starting with the females, the “Reports” section of Digital Beef is a good resource. Utilizing the “Production Summary” report pulls together the production records on all your active females. It’s essentially the report card of your cow herd. The system will pull together all your cows, and all recorded data on their progeny, giving you the ability to see which cows are making the grades and which ones may need some time in detention! To get a better look at EPDs in the cow herd, I love using the “Custom Report Builder” feature. The Custom Report allows you to focus on the information that is of most interest to your breeding program. Reports can be pulled based on age and sex, and you can select which data points, production info, and EPDs you want presented to you on the final spreadsheet that is output at the end. This is my go-to method to efficiently study data on groups of females.

After studying those females, you might decide that AI is the most effective way to infuse the genetics that will take you towards your destination the quickest. The EPD Search function is a good option for identifying those potential AI sire candidates. Via “Search Tools” at the top of your Digital Beef page, you’re taken to the EPD search where you can enter your parameters a potential sire needs to meet. In addition to EPD thresholds (minimum and/or maximums), you can sort purebreds only, by color, and if a bull has sired registered progeny to date. Once you input search parameters, the search will give back to you a list of bulls that meet your criteria, their entire EPD profile, and a link to their individual animal page in the registry to allow for further study. You will want to enter a couple different EPD criteria into the search (to narrow the list some), but also don’t want to have criteria for every EPD (yield no matches). The message on the screen “fetching results…please be patient” needs to be adhered to, as it takes a few minutes to search the whole database. Clicking the button to start the search again just takes you back to square one and will make the process even longer.

Once you’ve identified some prospect sires, you can see how they complement your cow herd on paper using the Progeny Calculator tool in Digital Beef. You can find this feature under the Tools menu. The Progeny Calculator tool gives you a quick glimpse into projected EPD profiles of a sire (herd bull or AI) for calves out of your females. For a more in-depth discussion of this tool, you can reference back to my article in the November 2021 issue of the Country.

Best of luck with your upcoming breeding season. Hopefully, the information that Digital Beef puts at your fingertips gives you the opportunity to move your breeding program in the direction you want to take it in your pursuit of breeding better Shorthorns. If you have any questions about any of the features mentioned in this article, feel free to shoot me an email (matt@ shorthorn.org).